Deputy commish Tatum says NBA taking steps to ensure front-office diversity
The NBA has never instituted a "Rooney Rule"-type system that operates in the NFL, and at first glance it's easy to see why. The league has always led the way in major North American pro sports in terms of front-office - and to a lesser extent, ownership - diversity.
Yet for a league in which the player population is almost three-quarters black, the recent trend of fewer African-Americans filling front-office positions has not gone unnoticed at NBA headquarters.
"We have a long history of minorities being well-represented as top basketball executives," deputy commissioner Mark Tatum told CSN's Vincent Goodwill. "I think it's a matter of time before the numbers move up."
Tatum spoke to Goodwill and The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski on the topic of two initiatives the NBA is starting in this area: Hiring a newly-created chief diversity and inclusion officer, Oris Stuart, and forming a program that gives former players an opportunity to work in the league office. The latter will launch next season.
"For us it's not about checking the box, it's about a commitment," Tatum told Goodwill. "It's about a holistic approach to a culture of inclusion. Given our record, we feel good about our environment."
The creation of a chief diversity and inclusion officer came after former Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry resigned in the wake of controversial statements he made about veteran NBA player Luol Deng.
For the success stories of GMs such as the Toronto Raptors' Masai Ujiri and the Charlotte Hornets' Rich Cho, some have begun to ask if the shift in basketball towards specific analytics backgrounds is creating the unintended consequence of less visible minorities being hired for decision-making positions.
Still, in Dr. Richard Lapchick’s 2015 Racial and Gender Report Card, the NBA received the top grades in men's sports - A+ for racial hiring and a B+ for gender hiring practices.
"There's only 30 of those (GM) jobs and I don't think it's tied to the influx of new owners," Tatum said. "We have the most diverse ownership group in professional sports, an African-American owner (Michael Jordan), an Indian-American owner (Vivek Ranadive), a Russian owner (Mikhail Prokhorov)."